PAFP Camp YOU'VE BESTED ME // herb training

[serpentberry]

Her children are waddling about now; they've been for the better part of a week, admittedly, but now they crave diving into the thrall of camp and getting under warrior paws. As a dutiful mother, she must attend to them (and ensure no lashing tongue chides them for being kittens.) This means leaving her den of herbs supplies unattended for the most part. Not to say that she cannot trust the warriors of this Clan, but surely there is someone foolish enough to chew on a leaf they do not understand the consequences of. And so, she starts small, with a molly who seems sewn to her hip most of the time.

"This one, we don't care for the leaves. They're too spiny and as far as I know, do nothing," she turns over a flower who's petals have all but wilted in the leafbare chill, but still expresses enough of an example to show off. "The petals and head are what we can use. Normally, we would dry it before it gets to... this point..." she trails off. Serpentberry frowns in knowing that teaching anyone her amount of knowledge would take moons, even someone as eager or impressionable as Rowanpaw. She grinds her teeth and damns Cicada from her spot, all before passing the stem along to the apprentice to inspect.

[ pls wait for @rowanpaw !! ]

 

[rowanpaw]

The smell in Serpentberry's den is strong despite the rather small amount of herbs they'd actually managed to scavenge. Rowanpaw is sitting next to her mother, quiet, thoughtful. She watches carefully how Serpentberry handles each plant, mentally noting down the shape, smell, texture– anything that would help her identify them in the wild. Anything that stood out enough to be the defining characteristic, something to tie the name and the use to in her head. Already Rowanpaw has built a sort of den in her mind, with nooks and crannies to hide herbs in, something she can imagine and go through at any time.

She wants to learn, badly, wants to be helpful. Wants Serpentberry to have more time with her kits, to not have to spend so much time tending to cats that weren't them. But what she wants most of all is, perhaps, for Serpentberry to trust her. To depend on her. Believe in her, like she had when she'd encouraged her to hunt from the treetops.

Serpentberry pushes a wilted flower in front of her for her to examine. Rowanpaw lowers her head to see it up close; the stem is thin, but sturdy– and upon closer inspection, she sees that what she thought had been oddly shaped seed pods of some sort are actually many small flower heads, densely packed together at the end of the stems. They're dark red, almost purple in color, and in their wilted state have no distinct smell.

"What are they used for?" Rowanpaw asks.